A different kind of christmas carol
by isapheonix
Summary: An old story with a modern twist and a sexy, hapless taiyoukai to have to deal with it all. The title says it all.


**A/N Merry belated Christmas. I finally got into the Christmas spirit and decided the best way to celebrate was a parody of two of everybody's favourite classics. Please note I own nothing worth owning, especially not Inuyasha so lawyers go rob someone else. So without further ado I give you**

**A different kind of Christmas Carol**

Sesshomaru was sick of Christmas. He hated the whole damned holiday. There were bloody days off and stupid feasts and those damned carolers. If he had to listen to one more crappy rendition of the little drummer boy he would probably kill something. "Would it really kill you to rehearse first????" He shouted out the window of his office on the thirteenth floor of his building. The carolers looked around in dismay for the person who had interrupted their song but by this time Sesshomaru was already back at his desk glaring at his calendar as if that would make the time go faster. Sesshomaru had started his small plumbing company a century ago when he finally lost his patience with the smell of chamber pots. While it had not done well at first it soon took off much to the relief of his nose. A few other investments later made him a multi zillionaire. With the combined triumphs of basic hygiene and money savvy behind him he and his ego rose to insane proportions. And it showed in his building. Looking around he could see success in the elegance of his hardwood decorations to the sumptuousness of his thick warm carpet. It was even evident in the demeanor of his employee/ slave Jaken.

Jaken was the only other person occupying that floor of the office, mainly because he was a germaphobe who kept himself painstakingly clean. There were bottles of rubbing alcohol crammed into every free corner of his desk and a pair of surgical gloves kept nearby for the sake of typing and doorknobs. Jaken himself was cramped against his desk wearing his usual 100% cotton hand sanitized buisness suit, made organically to minimize contact with those disgusting plastic polymers. Sesshomaru smiled at the image of his office and of Jaken. He was truly successful.

A sudden ding from the elevator in the corner of the room snapped Sesshomaru out of his pleasant thoughts. To his annoyance, he say his half brother Inuyasha sriding out of it with a big smile on his face and an enormous pile of decorations in his arms. Jaken glanced at Inuyasha briefly before he leaped into a panic and began spraying the surrounding area with lysol.

"Oy Sesshomaru," Inuyasha demanded, "Can't you do something about that damned toad and the smell of that stuff he sprays everywhere?"

"No, see it helps when pesky odours and other such unpleasant things show up unexpectedly." Sesshomaru responded cooly, hoping against hope that that would be enough to drive away his half brother. No such luck. Inuyasha just laughed.

"I see you still have that famous wit." he said happily, refusing to be baited. Sesshomaru almost groaned, he knew what was coming next. "On a serious note for a second though, o here hold that Jaken." Inuyasha piled some garlands on the squalling toad as he hung up a mistletoe, "Kagome and I are having our annual get together. Everybody who is anybody is going to be there, but of course you're not going to be there since you're not that important." He offered as casually as he could while secretly hoping the reverse psychology worked. The sudden letter opener that he had to dodge proved otherwise.

"If you have anything else important to say I suggest you say it or get the hell out and take that rubbish with you." Sesshomaru ordered gesturing coldly at the garish holiday colours that were now bedecked all over his office. Inuyasha opened his mouth to retort when the elevator dinged again and it opened to admit some very uncomfortable looking men. Jaken dove beneath his desk at this and the only evidence of his existance was the occasional scent of pine sol being sprayed into the surrounding atmosphere.

"Greetings Sesshomaru," said the taller of the two men, "we've come on behalf of the Salvation Army, you're secretary said that we could come right up and meet you." He smiled at Inuyasha and offered to shake his hand.

"Umm thats Sesshomaru in the corner there I'm his brother. I already made my contribution for this year." He smiled and gestured at Sesshomaru. The taller man looked over and winced at the image glaring out of the corner of the office.

"Well I'm happy to hear that, and you Sesshomaru, like your brother I'm sure, would be most eager to help some of the poor less fortunate people who live on the streets this time of..."

"GET OUT BEFORE I SKEWER YOU WITH MY GIANT SWORD!!!!!!" The two men looked confused at this until they saw the 3 foot long blade resting on the wall.

"Ok thank you for your time." the shorter one said backing away slowly. Inuyasha rolled his eyes and started laughing as he headed for the elevator.

"Merry Christmas Sesshomaru." He choked out between laughter while dodging flying mistletoe.

"BAH!" roared Sesshomaru.

Sesshomaru was not in a good mood. He had spent the last hour painstakingly ripping those damned decorations to shreds until they were nothing more then confetti for him to throw out the window, much to the chagrin of pedestrians and ecologists alike. He was still in a foul mood when he heard a soft cough from Jaken in the other room. 'The damned toad had better not be pretending to be ill' he thought coldly.

"Umm, Lord Sesshomaru, I was wondering if I could head home early today? You see my son is sick and I promised we would wish on the yule log for him to get...."

"No you'll work till 10 pm as usual or you wont work at all." He shot back.

"But my lord, I shouldn't even be working today, after all the labour laws suggest that I should have at the very least stopped working at four today and..." Sesshomaru's glare cut him off before he could finish.

"Fine you can leave now but I expect you to make up for it tomorrow." He said between tightly gritted teeth.  
"But my lord the labour laws suggest..."

"FINE TAKE THE WHOLE DAMNED DAY OFF BUT YOU WILL NOT BE GETTING ANY TIME OFF FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD????"

"yes my lord." Jaken answered timidly and slunk out of sight. Sesshomaru continued to glare at where the toad had been. The sooner this damned holiday was over the better.

Jaken was long gone and it was approaching 11 pm when Sesshomaru finally left the office. He found at this time of night there were less cars and less air pollution. Plus all the runts were in bed waiting for their annual burglar to show up, while the adults were busy drinking themselves stupid. There was no one to bother him for his walk home. He finally arrived at the tiny apartment he lived in because he was a cheap ass not ten minutes later, and began his small meal of rice and broth alone with nothing but fire to light up the room and keep him warm. It may have been the twenty first century but he still remembered how cheap it was to live in the eighteen hundreds, and he intended to keep things that way as much as possible, even if he had to saw a hole in the roof to make a chimney to do it. He was halfway through his cheap ass dinner when all the of clocks started going crazy and chiming, even though it was eleven fifty nine.

"Must be broken." He thought bitterly, "now i'm going to have to buy new ones. Why the hell should I even have to get new clocks its not like anyone comes here. The office is where I need to look good not here, I may be as important as an ocean but thats only cuz I don't spend anything. Why do the damned clocks have to break. Must be..." footsteps behind him interrupted this comfortable train of bitchy thought. In a heartbeat Sesshomaru was out of the chair and had a sword pointed at......nothing.

"Damned floor." he started all over again, "must be broken. Now I'm going to have to buy..." another footstep was behind him and once again he swung around faster then the eye could see. This time he was looking into the ghostly pale face of his old partner in crime Kagura.

Kagura was standing there carrying her fan looking much as she had more then four hundred years ago when she had died. She still had that holier then thou mixed with unbelievable self importance look on her face that had characterized her.

"Yo." she said blandly as an introduction.

"What are you doing here?!" Sesshomaru demanded not troubling to lower his sword."  
"You can put that away I'm just here to chat."

"Your chats always end with you begging me to kill something for you." He shot back still holding the sword at the ready.

"Suit yourself. I'm just here with a message for you." She said settling herself into the chair he had formerly occupied. "What a dump this is, haven't you ever heard of lights?" she asked casually surveying the shack he lived in.

"Get on with it before I skewer you with my giant sword." He said furious. He never had liked her much.

"First of all I'm the wind now ass I dont need to do anything you say and you can't skewer me. Second of all," she continued ignoring his growl, "if you spent as much on food and heat as you do on giant swords to string everywhere I wouldn't have to be here. This is what's going on, you've become and miserable ass...well a more miserable ass and theres bad stuff thats going to happen to you."

"How would you know." He asked suspiciously finally sheathing his sword in its usual place in the chair backing.

"I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy. And as useless as you were protecting me," his eye twitched, "I felt I owed it to you to come and tell you everything. You're unfortunate ass if going to be veisited by three spirits. You may or may not know them. Regardless they're going to come for you tonight."

"When?" He demanded rudely.

"The first one should have been here five minutes ago. Anyways I gotta fly. Really how old is this chair, haven't you ever heard of stuffing?" She asked with a laugh as he vanished out of sight. Sesshomaru glared at where she had stood. Suddenly he smelled...flowers.

Rin had died more then 300 years ago. She had been an old woman by then but still spent a lot of her free time picking flowers. Even through twelve pregnancies and nine children she still found time for flowers. This was how Sesshomaru knew that what he was seeing was real. Rin was standing there as a decrepit old woman with bunches of flowers everywhere. For some reason, though, she was back in her orange checkered kimono and smiling as she had when she was very very young.

"Hello Lord Sesshomaru, you hardly look changed at all though I must say you used to dress a lot more nicely." she said with a laugh and began arranging the flowers in a vase that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. "I would have been here sooner but there was this absolutely beautiful flower patch and I couldn't resist bringing you some." She said and she began to hum. It was at this moment that Sesshomaru finally found his voice.  
"You are here." She smiled at the comment and continued humming. Sesshomaru inwardly winced at the dumbness of the comment and started again. "Why are you here?"

"O I think you already know. I heard all about how Kagura was coming to warn you. I swear that girl still likes to mess around in things that shes better off leaving alone. Its pretty strange considering what a coward she always was. Anyways. I am here to remind you of everything that you used to do this time of year. I know that the holidays didn't already matter to us but we all thought that this would be a good time to arrange things since this week all the youkai used to be calmer and you didn't get in that many fights and even almost had something that resembled fun." She rambled happily. Sesshomaru stood there looking stunned. He still had no idea what was going on and he told her as much.

"O you mean Kagura didn't tell you?" She asked her smile growing even bigger. "Well you have officially had such a miserable aura around you for the last century that the association of mikos have decided that its time you changed your wicked ways." Sesshoamru almost groaned for the second time in a day. The association of mikos was an old organization designed to police all of the youkai in an area. They were mikos who had been raised amongst youkai and humans and had no prejudices against either species. They were fair and honourable and just and all the things that Superman tried to be.. and they were also a royal pain in Sesshomaru's neck. "As a result, the mikos have called on some spirits to try and remind you that life can be worth living. Thats why I'm here. So," She said happily and stood up suddenly from her flowers, "off we go." Rin grabbed Sesshomaru by the edge of his pjs and started to run happily towards the wall, dragging a helpless taiyoukai behind her.

The next thing Sesshomaru knew he was in a field full of flowers, surrounded by trees. His own younger self was standing in the middle of the field. Jaken was there as were a few of Rins great grandchildren. Rin herself would have been dead by this point. Young Sesshomaru was trying and failing to get the kids to eat their vegetables.

"Man my great grandkids were spoiled brats." Rin noted with a laugh. "Do you remember this year?" She asked with a smile.

"Yes this is the year the weather stayed warm until middle of February when the snow suddenly dumped on us one day." Old Sesshomaru groused.

"Do you remember what happens next?" She asked ignoring his grouchy tone.  
"How would you know you weren't even there." Rin laughed again when suddenly Inuyasha jumped into the middle of the field.

'Sesshomaru I need to talk to you.' Young Inuyasha said. Young Sesshomaru merely nodded and gestured to the children to leave.

'What is it Inuyasha.' he asked none too politely.

'Kagome is going to try a life extension spell. I know you already saved her life once and believe me I appreciate it but just in case it goes wrong, I wanted to know if you would look after our children.'

'Why would you not be present?' Young Sesshomaru asked mildly intrigued but mostly indignant at the burden.

'Well, the spell will involve some of my life energy. Its complicated but as far as we know the gist of it is that when I die she'll die.' Inuyasha said slightly anxious now.

'Fine I'll look after your brats. But don't expect me to take much care of a bunch of wild half demon idiots.' Young Sesshomaru said coldly. He was flattered that Inuyasha would ask him but at the same time he couldn't bear the idea of more children after what had happened to Rin. Young Inuyasha who knew none of this, was furious at the affront to him and his family.

'Fine then we don't want the help of a cold hearted bastard like you anyway.' Before young sesshomaru could rectify his mistake inuyasha was gone.

Standing nearby Sesshomaru was embarrassed. He had changed his mind after his cruel comment and had even watched over the brats while Inuyasha and Kagome were trying the spell. He had hoped that one of them would tell their parents about what he had done but when Inuyasha and Kagome had survived the procedure the children had already forgotten. In time they had forgiven him. By this time, however, Sesshomarus pride had forced him to behave even more coldly to his kin. All of this now bothered him a great deal.

"Sucks don't it." Observed Rin. "Even I know you didn't want that to happen but you never could deal with it or do anything to change it. Ah well. Just remember this. You do have a family and it would not take very much for them to love you as I did. All you have to do is warm up a little and be more open to what could be." She smiled one last time at his sombre thoughtful expression, kissed him on the cheek and was gone.

Before Sesshomaru could do much more then touch the spot on his cheek that Rin had kissed the scene changed to a quiet swirling mist. His younger self had disappeared along with Rin and all sense of sound. Sesshomaru looked around bewildered at the change when he heard what sounded like the jingle from a saddle. Before he knew what to do next Ah-Un was beside him.

Ah-Un had lived only a little longer then Rin had. In his sorrow at the loss of his child Sesshomaru had paid only a little attention to the fact that the dragon had gotten a taste for hallucinogenic flowers. His half hearted attempt to get the dragon to stop had only led to the dragon running away and indulging until it too had died leaving Sessomaru even more dazed then before. He had always known that what had happened to the dragon was his fault and still blamed himself even to this very day. The dragon, however now looked as cheerful as a centuries dead two headed dragon could look. Both heads rubbed themselves against Sesshomarus arms before knocking him onto their shared back and taking off into the mist. Sesshomaru allowed himself the luxury of resting on their back. He was very tired after all. Scratching the dragons ears he whispered 'I'm sorry for what I let happen to you,' knowing that they would hear. They only hummed with pleasure when suddenly out of the mist came a sight Sesshomaru had never seen before. It was a swamp with what looked like a cross between a shack and a hole in the ground sticking out of it. Jaken was climbing out with a small, skinny, sickly looking little toad mounted on his back.

'Yay daddy,' the little toad yelled, 'are we gonna catch fish for supper?'

'No, Lord Sesshomaru raised my salary by a few pennies this year,' Sesshomarus cheeks turned red with shame, which is in itself an amazing feat for one so pale, 'so I bought fish.'

'YAY!' The little toad screamed even more shrilly. It was obvious that the young one had inherited his fathers voice much to the chagrin of everyone who met him. Both toads walked back into the hole shack thing as Sesshomaru and Ah-Un came up behind them to look in on the dinner. The Shack was a small looking thing with only a small table and a few chairs in one corner and two futon laying side by side in the other. Aside from Jaken and the small creature there was also another toad wearing lipstick. To Seshomarus amazement when she opened her mouth a voice as pretty as a bell, but filled with venom said 'Well I'm glad you got that old codger to give you a day off. Honestly where does he get the nerve expecting you to make up overtime on Christmas day. If not for miny mites medical bills I would sue him into the grave. I would take him for every cent I could get and watch him die of starvation.'

'Now my dear, lord Sesshomaru has always let me continue working in that beautiful clean office building so we would have enough money for this wonderful home,' a section of the roof collapsed, 'and this excellent feast.' Jaken looked down proudly at the few slices of tuna. While his wife thought that it would have been better to catch dinner she had already resigned herself to the fact that there was no way she would convince the germaphobic toad to actually enter the swamp when he didn't have to.

"Can't we go somewhere else?" Sesshomaru asked finally losing the ability to stand the gratitude of the poorer then dirt toad that he employed. Ah-Un was back in the air. The mist swirled around them again and cleared to reveal a very pretty and festive looking shrine. Inuyasha, Kagome, their children, as well as Kagomes family were all gathered in a large sitting room talking animatedly.

'Well I tried inviting the bastard but you know how he is.' Inuyasha said loudly over everyone elses voices. 'He looked at me like I was pond slime and threw me out as well as some charity workers. Well don't look so shocked.' He said to the surprised look on Kagomes face. Sesshomaru winced at this. This was completely the opposite of what Rin had told him they all thought of him. Just as he was about to turn away a small voice piped up 'Well he can't be all bad. After all he did look after mum and dad and everyone for a little while while you guys were sick.' Sesshomaru looked to see Kagomes youngest grandchild speaking.

'When did he do that?' Inuyasha asked curiously.

'When you were making that spell for grandma. Mother told me that Sesshomaru had come and played with everyone while you guys were away in the room.' The small girl said as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

'Well I'll be damned.' Inuyasha said loudly with a look of shock on his face. 'I wonder why he did that.'

Sesshomaru looked hopefully at the gathering. 'Probably because he knew that daddy was so much better than him. Remember how he kept asking us all those questions? God I thought he would never shut up.' Volunteered Inuyashas oldest child. The whole family started talking again at this leaving Sesshomaru feeling as dejected as he could ever remember feeling. The dragons two heads nuzzled his hands again and then they to left for good.

Sesshomaru was still standing there feeling depressed while the party raged on around him when he suddenly saw a familiar face. There was Naraku glaring at him from the center of the party. Sesshomaru reached for where his sword used to be belted when he suddenly remembered that Naraku was long dead.

"Lord Sesshomaru," Naraku began politely and mockingly at the same time, "I'm supposed to show you a bunch of things that are going to happen but I don't want to waste too much of my afterlife with you so i'm just going to tell you. That miny kid of Jakens will be dead by tomorrow. After that his mother will hire a lawyer and sue you for so many labour violations that you will lose your company by the end of the month. Your money will go to a number of settlements from other employees who followed her example. By the end of September you will end up poor and in the gutter. By next Christmas you will be dead from starvation. Have a nice new years." Naraku said with a smile. With that cold speech he was gone.

Sesshomaru woke up in his bed feeling cold. He went flying down the hall to a window since he hadn't bothered paying for an apartment with a window and looked out. It was still a beautiful sunny day and there were children fighting in the snow. Carolers were running around outside doing their god awful renditions of old songs.

"Its still Christmas." He whispered to himself. Then he yelled "ITS STILL CHRISTMAS!!!!!" He ran up and down the hall yelling this at the top of his lungs, and continued yelling it as he signed off on all of Jakens sons medical bills, so that the kid could survive to an old old age. He was even yelling it when he was carted away to the loony bin. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and spent the next 6 months on a strict regiment of rest and drugs. When he was finally released he gave a significant amount of money to charity and threw a lavish party for all of his family and even Jaken and his family. When asked how he felt all Sesshomaru had to say was this: "At least I can still hate new years."


End file.
